At first, the Piper Cherokee pilot sounds hesitant about describing his experience high over Colorado skies. But he trusts the interviewer enough to begin opening up and, as the recorded phone conversation from 1977 continues, he describes in detail the huge, seemingly metallic, elongated spherical objecthe encountered during an otherwise routine flight. Approximately the size of a DC-3, the UFO paced his aircraft and approachedthe pilot's right wing, forcing him to instantly bank hard to avoid a collision. How close did the thing get, asks interviewer Robert Gribble? Without skipping a beat, the pilot firmly responds, "TOO damned close!" Indeed, the mysterious object witha stainless steel-like texture closed in to a very uncomfortable distance of only 50 feet from that vulnerable right wing. An FAA representative, also interviewed about the case on the recording, expresses bewilderment and curiosity about what the pilot saw, but doesn't doubt his story.

With this, her most ambitious and gigantic compilation (44 incredible hours) to date, Wendy Connors has produced the ultimate UFO-related audio documentary, and if the listener doesn't come away from a thorough audition of this disc convinced that UFOs are absolutely real, and perhaps deadly serious business, then the listener may require either a generous brain transplant or relocation to a TV sitcom, where evidence of something strange never interferes with the all-is-normal fantasies upon which some of us construct our daily lives. Sing the praises of UFO-related films and videos all you want, but never dismiss the importance of audio. There's something about the recorded voice, disembodied from a visualized talking head. Often the raw, unadulterated self-narrative of one's UFO experience reinforces the incident's integrity, and frequently voice inflections and choice of words can betray a hoax or delusion. But make no mistake, sounds hold our attention as we use our minds in an attempt to comprehend the unseen, if not the unknown.

In this remarkable collection you won't find gaggles of stuffy scientists postulating what UFOs are or are not. Instead, refreshingly, here are folks from every walk of life reporting their UFO experiences in disturbing detail, sometimes right after they occur, and sometimes as they happen in real-time-witnesses in denial or scared out of their wits, or people who simply seek an explanation following the most bizarre event their lives will ever know. The depth of military and government agency involvement or cooperation evidenced in these telephone recordings, it must be noted, simply astounds.

Connors' most recent work for her Faded Discs project involves putting into digital format hundreds of hours of phoned-in UFO reports obtained from Robert Gribble's National UFO ReportingCenter in Seattle, a service Gribble operated for twenty years, gaining credible UFO reports from all over the world until 1994, when Peter Davenport took over the data collection responsibility.

Gribble, a UFO researcher since 1955, and his associates had conducted on-site investigations and interviews where necessary and amassed literally a wealth of tape-recorded(reel-to-reel and audiocassette) UFO documentation just from phone conversations. However, the world was nearly denied access to this monumental historical exercise:" Robert Gribble was going to toss out his materials," Wendy Connors relates, "but then decided I might find them useful. I did, and what we are listening to is his gift to the UFO community. We all owe him a great deal of gratitude."

Connors describes Gribble as a treasure: "I listen to every single call he received and select what I feel is the best to put on the compilations. I also include a few reports that offer a balance to show that some sightings, although mundane, can affect people - and to show that people are more honest than not about describing what they saw. I can only remember three recordings I thought were suspect, so far." I really worked hard to be selective enough to zero in on the better reports and cover such areas as pilot cases, UFOs near water, triangles, radar/visual incidents, abductions and close encounters of the third kind. Also, and most important," Connors advises, "I wanted to provide human interest cases profiling that people of all types not only see UFOs, but are intelligent and reliable, even if they are only goat farmers. I hope I succeeded."

And succeed Wendy Connors does with this new entry. She knows how to pick the audio essentials, just as she did with her contributions to the late Peter Jennings' UFO documentary onABC-TV. The program had its detractors, but in this reviewer's opinion the montage of UFO witness audios that opened the report- some of them provided by Connors, earning her a place in the end credits - gave the show a powerful start.

So - just how does one review this 44-hour colossus? Maybe it's best to start at the end, because the beginning, like most of the entries here which cover the years 1974 to 1977, takes care of itself. Skipping far ahead to track 242, an intriguing, if not amazing, report from 1977, nearly 20 minutes long, demands our jaw-dropping attention as Gribble interviews a Naval Intelligence pilot. Having just flown a reconnaissance mission at 60,000 feet for the Central Intelligence Agency somewhere between Tokyo and Hawaii at night, he encountered a large triangular craft. Pacing his F4-11 Phantom for almost a half hour, the thing appeared dark with no lights or outward signs of propulsion equipment. One detail raising an eyebrow with Wendy Connors was the revelation in the pilot's narrative that the object exhibited a surface appearance like foam rubber.

"Track 242 is a 'barn-burner' event," she emphasizes. "A few tracks earlier on this disc is another description of a triangle with a foam rubber-like surface texture. This certainly offers some additional data on the black triangles. I've never read of this before."

Speeding ahead in excess of Mach 2.2, the F4-11 Phantom's bizarre visitor easily remained within 50 feet of the left wing. Sporting the most advanced technology available at the time, the Navy pilot utilized all the aircraft equipment he could in an attempt to identify the bogey, including turning on a powerful light and aiming it toward the object - which continued to evidence itself as a solid craft." This (object) had no effort at all in keeping up with me," the pilot informs Gribble. . .it defied all the laws of aerodynamics. There was no reason for it to fly." When the UFO eventually sped away, "It took it less than tens econds to get out of radar range - less than ten seconds to go150 miles." The pilot acknowledges that the UFO became a momentary "speck" on his radar before it disappeared, and by thetime he consumed another three seconds to flip the radar detection to a 500 mile range, the thing had already absconded at a tremendous speed, leaving no trace. The pilot's response to Gribble's question about how solid the radar return appeared was simply: "Perfect." Missile sensors and detection equipmentaboard the F4-11 indicated no evidence of heat or thrust from the mysterious flight companion.

Throughout the interview, the pilot reflects integrity and intricate knowledge of his field, and doesn't hesitate to offer Gribble names and addresses to contact, to the extent that he can after his honest and puzzled description of the experience. (A footnote here: Many reports of triangular craft are sprinkled throughout this project.)

Connors' latest disc isn't for those who prefer to swallow, toothpicks and all, the latest popular UFO explanation -"plasmas" - or for those impressed with the amusing concoction of "sleep paralysis" by hopelessly uninformed Ph.D. voodoo chefs.

Truly, as we explore this collection, each time we read in the track-by-track print guide that a particular case involves a "possible abduction" our skin crawls as a witness describes the ideal circumstances for an abduction, frighteningly unaware of the personal implications. And no, these folks aren't snugly tucked into bed, waiting for a (sigh.. .) sleep incident to be conjured up.

In this regard, the compilation includes such witnesses as a no-nonsense trucker in Montana whose tanker truck engine was apparently disabled by a disc-shaped UFO, temporarily stopping his watch in the process. Was there an abduction during this, his second recent UFO encounter?

Indeed, eight entries alone concern early reports of the 1975 Travis Walton abduction in Arizona, some called in by people who know Walton and the other young men involved.

Another weird incident involves a pregnant woman in New Mexico, driving a car with her young son aboard, who is unpleasantly surprised when a large blue object touches down in front of her truck and then returns to the sky.

This incident involves vehicle electrical interference, perhaps a huge chunk of missing time and a possible abduction. "I don't remember, you know, seeing it leave or anything," she advises Robert Gribble, who has a knack for listening sympathetically. "I just remember looking at the (highway) car lights that were coming towards me,and it was more like I was in a daze or something." Following the encounter, her son frequently speaks of the lights they saw.

The first 18 tracks on the disc are what Connors labels Anatomyof a UFO investigation, effectively laying out both the chaos and solid research involved in 1975 when strange activities occurred over the US Pacific Northwest. Was a UFO involved? A missile? A meteor or electrical phenomena? How did one object seen falling from the sky become five? Was there a crash and then a crater? Follow the phone calls and judge for yourself.

Faced with 252 tracks, it's impossible to attempt covering the abundance of wonderful mysteries available here. Yes, UFOs abound, and there's also a little Bigfoot, a trace of horrible animal mutilations and a genuine passport to the world of the unknown.

One hardly knows what to make of a sergeant fromMalstrom AFB when he and four friends report a confrontation with a "hideous" 15 feet-tall hairy creature that charges them after they fire a warning shot in the woods.

But UFOs always take center stage at the National UFO Reporting Center, andWendy Connors' personal selection process assures that each entry here is worthwhile, credible and often adorned with exciting and/or highly bizarre qualities. A reading of the print guide itself would make one eager to spend 44 hours with this audio document.

One caller, formerly a cadet pilot at Lackland Air Force Base,Texas in 1954, relates a story of a UFO landing 30 feet from his group, only to zip away vertically when confronted.

A retired Air Force pilot almost sounds annoyed when he calls to report his car being followed by a large gray object accompanied by several smaller objects, and as is the case with many witnesses on this disc, he first made an official report to a government agency which referred him to Gribble's organization - a tributeto NUFORC's relationship with the military and police at several levels all over the country.

A Utah man relates how an object chasing his car causes a tingling in his neck and extreme electrical interference as the alternator, gauges and "everything went crazy."

Numerous UFO-auto encounters are featured on the disc, as are UFO-aircraft incidents, and many cases involve multiple witnesses of good to excellent caliber.

A brief but highly curious event reported by a private pilot in California involves three arrow-shaped objects flying in formation and disappearing at high speed.

In Washington, an egg-shaped UFO maneuvers around a police helicopter, affecting the instruments.

Among other disc tracks is the case of children at a California school who watch a Saturn-like UFO hover over their school, accompanied by a massive vibration in the area.

During one of many triangle reports included here, two police officers observe such an object with red and blue lights within 60 feet, hovering near a power generation plant, and it departs at high speed.

You say you're looking for the really, really unusual stuff? How about an incident where two green objects pace a car and gently lift it off and then back onto the road? And for those who pray every night that every troublesome debunker and hardline skepticin the world will one day have that special UFO experience, track 212 features nothing less than a formerly doubting physicist who observes four objects on a horizontal flight path."I sat there in a state of shock for about five minutes, becauseI had never believed in these things before," he confesses to Gribble, "but this is something that I've never seen before and that I can't explain.Connors readily points out that the witness "is flummoxed by the sighting, as he didn't believe in UFOs - a perfect illustration of the phenomenon's effect on the scientific mind set when confronted with the reality of it."

Nomination for a very creepy award would be track 224, in which three young people in the state of Washington experience a close encounter of the third kind. This UFO makes noise, chases their car, lands and leaves, but not without causing electrical problems and physical effects on the passengers. Of considerable interest is what may have been a UFO occupant crossing the road in front of their car. "It looked like a tree was crossing the road," admits the caller, confessing his fear amidst nervous laughter. "In other words," Gribble asks about the entire event,"you were pretty scared?" The young witness replies,"Petrified."

Finally, though the disc surface has barely been scratched in this review, there's a 25-minute section that absolutely must not be ignored, a UFO incident capturing the attention of at least four separate Midwestern U.S. radar facilities. FromDecember 17, 1977 we hear an enigma in progress as Gribble attempts to sort out the status of two objects flying at supersonic speed, tracked on radar. During this ufological roller-coaster ride, the UFOs actually chase an Air Force plane, reverse course and, incredibly, may have caused equipment failure at both the Ellsworth AFB RAPCON unit and the SouthDakota Weather Station.

At one point, an Air Force tech sergeant tells Gribble, "Just a few minutes ago, right after we started tracking these things, we completely lost all of our radar equipment." After some checking with equipment maintenance people, Gribble is further advised: "Our radar has completely quit on us and we cannot find out the reason why."

And as if things aren't already peculiar enough - maintenance men at one facility discover the external radar antenna inexplicably bent over and disabled, even though the area winds aren't blowing much in excess of 30 m.p.h.

Dramatic UFO encounters are more the rule than the exceptionwith this disc, but even after Connors stuffs our ears and minds with hours of truly disturbing UFO evidence via the Gribble collection, she includes at the end a "Supplemental Recordings"section, a half dozen miscellaneous selections from the NUFORC recordings archive.

Is there anything wrong with this compilation? Yes. We have no way of following up on most of these cases to learn their eventual status, and we can thank the passage of time for that.We suspect, however, that most of the incidents described remain mysteries, and the faceless voices telling us of their encounters seem no less credible and puzzled now than they originally did almost 30 years ago. Without the intervention and digital audio magic performed by Ms. Connors, these remarkable recordings may have become merely something for the morning garbage truck to pick up, haul to a landfill and destroy forever. That, dear reader, may be the scariest thought of all.________

Yours truly was a member of Gribble's organization for many years before beginning The UFO Contact Center International. It was due to the abduction reports that Bob received that prompted that action. At the time there were no reporting centers strictly for abductions.

Kalani Hanohano was also a member of Bob's organization. We were all friends for over 40 years.

Bob is still interested in UFOs and attends our UFO meeting here in Auburn once a month.